Feedback: Using Formal and Informal Assessments to Advance Student Learning

Name of Student: Haley Winsor
Grade: 9 (?)
Topic: Plate Tectonics
Inquiry/Science Practice Addressed:
Type of Informal Assessment: Jigsaw mapping activity.
Type of Formal Assessment: Earth-Moon-Sun Calendar

Purpose:

Effective teaching requires assessment of student learning on an ongoing basis. For this task you will provide a description of the ways in which you conduct informal and formal assessment in your classroom. You will provide a copy of a formal assessment you used to analyze what students learned across several lessons. You will be asked to cite specific examples of what students know and are able to do based on the student work samples you provide. The analysis of what students have learned should also provide a basis for future instructional plans.

Feedback

Presentation of Assessment Artifacts

• Present - Learning objectives for the unit that your assessments are designed to address are explained.
• Partially Present - Copy of informal assessment, including directions, evaluation rubric/criteria, answer key, and description of how you plan to use information obtained from assignment.
• Present - Copy of formal assessment and scoring criteria, including directions, evaluation criteria/rubric, an answer key, and a description of how feedback was communicated to students.
• Partially Present - Evaluation criteria used for both informal and formal evaluation/assessment.
• Partially Present - Marked copies of students' work for both informal and formal evaluation/assessment.

Comments:

• Informal assessment evaluation criteria not included.
• I also did not the feedback you provided to the "not meeting standard" student.
• Your learning goals for the informal assessment were all process-oriented. What will students be learning by doing the activity? What specific relationships between the earth's land masses should students be able to infer after this activity?

Assessment/Evaluation Analysis

• Not Present - Description of assessments, including the range of thinking and skills required to complete the assessment successfully.
• Present - Describe how assessment criteria were communicated to students.
• Present - Explanation of what you expected to learn from assessment.
• Present - Description of what concepts from your teaching addressed by the assessments.
• Not Present - Explanation of how assessment accommodate students with different learning styles and needs.
• Not Present - Explanation of why you used the evaluation criteria that you chose.

Comments:

• Your expectations seem very general. Though the assignment is "meant to get them thinking," don't you expect them to learn something from the jigsaw activity?

Analysis of student performance

• Not Present - Description of what your assessments indicate about your students know. Cite specific examples from their work as evidence.
• Partially Present - A summary of what what you believe each of your example students knows based on your assessments.
• Not Present - Aggregation of your data - Report the performance of the class as a whole on your formal assessment.
• Not Present - Disaggregation of your data - Data representation showing differences between groups.

Comments:

• A description of why your "below standard" example was categorized that way would have been useful.

Reflection

• Partially Present - Comparison of your learning objectives for the unit with the requirements of your assessment.
• Not Present - Description of what did you learned about your instruction based on students' performances?
• Not Present - Description of what would you do differently next time you teach this unit and why?
• Not Present - Description of what will you do to improve your assessment tasks?

Comments:

• These sound like interesting assessments. Once you use them, you can think specifically about what you want students to learn and how they should be adjusted accordingly.
• My impression is that your students were engaged, but the expectations for what they were expected to know were low. Now is the time to reflect and raise the stakes by raising your expectations.